


The Role Models

by tardisjournal



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, M/M, angst with fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 18:33:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardisjournal/pseuds/tardisjournal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack pops the question in a less-than-ideal way. Ianto reacts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Role Models

The question, when it finally came, was so understated, and accompanied by such a lack of the usual grand gestures that one would expect, that Ianto almost missed it. The fact that Jack had, uncharacteristically, consumed quite a bit of Scotch and was slurring his words didn't help.

“Gwen and Rhys survived. Do you want to?”

Ianto placed his own glass down and arranged it neatly on a napkin before replying.

“Do I want to... what?” he inquired, enunciating each word. He'd drunk some too, and wanted to be sure, very sure, that he had heard correctly before venturing a reply.

Jack waved his hand expansively, nearly knocking the piece of coral from his desk in the process. “You know. You. Me. Us. Make it official and all that.”

That's what Ianto thought he'd meant.

He thought about making a sarcastic retort that no, he really wanted to die a horrible, flaming death, or baring that, he thought about asking “Are you drunk?” or “When?” or even “Why now?” But, ever-deliberate, Ianto stayed silent and pondered for a moment instead. The phrasing of Jack's question intrigued him, and it was easier to focus on that than the tide of roiling emotion that had risen inside him.

So Jack wanted Gwen and Rhys to be their relationship role models. Interesting.

Ianto thought about Gwen, who had come into Torchwood bragging about her wonderful relationship with Rhys and was having an affair with Owen not two months later.

Gwen, who had flirted with Jack from day one; even on that memorable day when Rhys had actually been in the Hub. True, she had made a great show of wanting to protect Rhys from the meat traffickers, but Ianto hadn't missed the way her eyes had strayed to Jack while she was kissing her boyfriend.

Gwen, who had shown up very, very pregnant on her wedding day, and poor Rhys had seemed to take it all in stride; had waited patiently at the altar for her with his head held high, ignoring the shocked whispers from their families and friends.

Gwen, whose gaze still followed Jack everywhere even though she was now married to Rhys, and Jack and Ianto were sort of a couple (though neither of them used that word).

Oh, Ianto knew that the pregnant-at-the-wedding-thing had not been Gwen's fault. But that didn't change the fact that if flirty, unfaithful, outrageous Gwen and patient, long-suffering, taken-for-granted Rhys were to be their role models in matrimony, Ianto knew exactly which one he would be.

Who he was already.

Who he had always been.

 

Ianto picked up his drink and took a long swallow, then gave Jack a crooked little smile.

“Yeah,” he said, carefully matching Jack's casual tone. “Sure. Why not?”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for mahmfic's prompt at the "comment_fic" community at LiveJournal: "Gwen and Rhys survived. Do you want to?"
> 
> Completed July 15, 2012


End file.
